Top 10 Tax & Super newsroom posts for calendar 2018

Over the calendar year 2018 there have been many notable tax and self-managed super developments.

Apart from bringing news and updates to Tax & Super Australia members and many others, the newsroom page of our website can also serve as a litmus test for what matters most to the tax practitioner community (driven by their own interests and/or the questions their clients ask).

Below we present (or re-present), in order of the number of views, the 10 most-read articles of the calendar year 2018.

1/EOFY checklist for employment-related tax deductions
This checklist contains a general list of specific and also general employment-related tax deductions, and should be viewed and used as a guide only. The results in each category of deductions may vary depending on every taxpayer’s individual circumstances.

2/Home to work travel claims? Generally not, but sometimes…
As a general rule, travel from your home to your workplace is not allowed as a deduction because it constitutes a “private expense”. There are however specific situations where this rule does not apply, and there can be circumstances where you may be entitled to claim some of the travel expenses.

5/How much do we need to put aside for retirement?
The question of how much retirement savings any particular person needs to squirrel away to be able to live to their expectations in their golden years is made all the more complicated by several unknown factors, each of which will need to be judged by the individual.

6/Franking and the new corporate tax rates
With changes to the corporate tax landscape, and with the new base rate entity regime made law only recently, it is understandable that many practitioners have experienced near deafening sound volumes made by the head scratching of their business clients.

7/Travel allowances (retaining the exception to substantiate)
In most circumstances, when claiming other deductions, your clients will be expected to be able to substantiate the expense being claimed with documentary evidence, and produce that evidence should the ATO request it. However an exception to substantiate claims applies to travel allowance expenses.

8/Trust streaming of capital gains and franked dividends
The ATO has stated that a trust’s capital gains and franked dividends can, if not specifically prevented by the trust deed, be streamed to trust beneficiaries for taxation purposes by making these trust beneficiaries “specifically entitled” to the concerned amounts.

9/Airbnb and the Australian tax system
While we are focusing here on Airbnb, the tax concepts outlined could be applied in a more general sense to anyone seeking to rent out their home or a part of their home through a “sharing economy” app, whether through Gumtree, Realestate.com.au, Flatmates.com.au and so on.

10/The shake up that’s coming to Division 7A
Discussion about reforms to Division 7A has been bouncing back and forth between the tax practitioner community and Treasury/ATO for many years — since the end of 2012 in fact. But change has been confirmed, and it’s just on the horizon.